Lowlight: The last hour was a bit of a grind. After a mildly undulating day, the trail dropped to cross a road with about an hour to go, then climbed pretty relentlessly on what was still a very warm afternoon. To put icing on the cake, about two thirds of the way up, I had to clamber down the side of the hill to a slowly dripping spring to get four litres of water for the night and then clamber back up again and continue hiking.

As usual, I was hiking by 6:30am on what promised to be a very warm day. I was still in the Trinity Alps and wanted to cover a good distance so I could be sure of reaching a road from where I could hitch to Etna on Tuesday (July 4th).

Although the scenery was still spectacular, more of the trail today was in the forest, which wasn’t a bad thing given the sun’s heat. However, there were still plenty of miles high along the bare sides of mountains and ridges, and lots of views.

Quite a few PCT hikers were heading south, none of whom I recognised. I reckon that the bulk of this year’s hikers, who would have been behind me when I hit the High Sierras, have now skipped ahead and are either hiking south from Ashland (the hikers I’m seeing) or north from points behind me. I only saw one northbound PCT hiker today (I’ve seen him three days in a row), and I’ll bet that when I get past Ashland, in a little over a week’s time, I’ll see very few southbound hikers.

Anyway, for today, I made good time, up until the last hour or so (see above), and am on track to reach Etna on Tuesday. At one of the few points on the trail where I had mobile phone coverage today, I phoned a motel in Etna and booked myself in for Tuesday and Wednesday night.